Summer Projects

Being a teacher, I value my summers off!  I cringe when I have to make doctor appointments or do a workshop for school - I mean, that is taking up precious summer time!  Between catching up on all my shows that were sitting on the DVR from the school year, visiting family, welcoming visitors, shopping, etc - I managed to squeeze in a few projects this summer.  I really thought I would get more done with my time, but I just couldn't drag myself off the couch some days! And I did NOT feel guilty once.
I added a few new pretties to the collection.

I had been eyeing this pouf at Target for months - finally on clearance so I snagged it!

Added some beauties to my M wall. If you are ever in the Austin area check this store out.

Kitchen rug (I painted the kitchen cabinets and my old one just didn't go - you understand right?).  I swear Murphy can find his way into a picture no matter what - he loves the attention.

Goodwill frames spray painted and hung to fill up a large blank wall and old plastic mirror framed with some old fence wood.  This is in my guest room that is a revolving door - one guest in one guest out.

My big project this summer was painting the kitchen cabinets.  I will post about those soon, I need to take some new pictures of  my fresh paint job!  I love how they turned out - but now I need a new back splash...subway tile here we come...

A Master in the Making (Part 2)

In the past months I have been able to scratch a few more things off the the master bedroom list.  Hubby and I made a headboard for our bed.

We took a sheet of plywood and covered it with quilt batting and then the fabric of our choice.  We used a staple gun to hold everything together.  It is nice and simple.  I really like the pop of color that it adds to the bedroom.  Not to mention it adds some cushion to the back of my head while reading at night!

My doodle, Murphy, would not budge while I was trying to take pictures of our bedding.  Why should he?  He rules this house anyways.  I originally had all white bedding (which is still my favorite, but with dogs...), but recently purchased this mustard yellow quilt and shams while shopping in Fredericksburg, Texas.  It is a lot lighter for summer and I am obsessed with mustard yellow.  The grey bed skirt can really go with whatever comforter I decide to use because I usually stick to solids with the bedding color.  And my (apparently Murphy's too..) blanket with the pom poms is from a local store here in town that we found hidden behind some furniture while searching for the right color.

Mint - another one of my favorite colors.  Hubby and I remodeled this dresser a couple of years ago during our apartment living.  I couldn't paint walls, so I painted furniture!  It was originally a dark wood with no pulls.  I collected the pulls over time and this was the perfect piece for them. 

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Doors have been painted black...and need a good cleaning apparently..

Looks like I will never be using the new blanket if I have to fight Murphy and Rosie for it!

Here is an updated list of to do's for the the master:

-paint -crown molding -flooring -new electrical plugs and covers -bedding -area rug -head board -bench/chairs at end of bed -closet doors/handles -paint french doors black -curtains on french doors -hide TV cords -vanity
We are ticking right along as we can afford it.  I want my next purchase to be a large rug that I can sink my toes into while walking around in the room.  Solid, pattern, color?  What do you think?
With the summer off from work - I have started painting my kitchen cabinets.  You can look back here for my mood board on the kitchen.  I will post before and progress pictures soon.

New pillows, New paint!

We have got some new little friends in the house.  And by friends, I mean, new accessories. I have been working on some small projects around the house, while we are saving money for some larger ones.

Recently, my grandfather gifted me with my grandmother's 1960's Singer sewing machine.  She looks like new and works like it too.  After a few evenings of reading over the manual (almost throwing in the towel) and lessons from my mother in law - I have some new throw pillows for the couch!

I must tell you that the new elephant pillow - I picked her up at Pier 1 on clearance.

I am addicted, people! I picked a simple first project, so that I could have instant gratification.  It worked.  One couch is full of new pillows, while the other one looks "blah" now.  I must push on and sew some new pillows for it - darn...not!

I used 18x18 inch pillow inserts and created a simple envelope closure for the back of the pillow.  I like to be able to take the pillow covers off and throw them in the wash when needed.

Guests are in and out constantly at our new house (welcomed of course)! We are trying to fix up the guest room so our friends and family feel comfortable.  We received an old piano bench that was going to serve as a luggage bench at the foot of the bed in our guest room.  It was definitely in need of some TLC and it came to the right place!

I sanded her down to begin with, then spray painted the whole thing white.  After several light coats and some dry time, I taped off the bottom of each leg.  I used metallic gold spray paint on each leg to add a little pop.  A little more dry time...then some polyurethane spray to top it off.  Our "new" piano bench got two thumbs up from Hubby's parents on their last visit. Hubby and I love tackling big projects - but I also love these little projects that I can do on my own while he is at work.  Sewing machine here I come.

A Master in the Making (Part 1)

Our master bedroom needs a lot of tlc.  Day one of move in we were ripping up the carpet.  I could not live one day with the carpet that was in there.  It was soiled from dogs and had holes and snags everywhere.  Not to mention - I am not sure what the original color of it was.  We lived on plywood for a few weeks while deciding on a new floor.  Day two was paint - our walls were almost a burnt orange with a nice space between the ceiling and walls where the previous owner left room for crown molding.  Sound familiar?  Several walls in our house were left like this.  

After several weeks (possibly months, I have lost track) our new floor arrived.  We purchased our flooring from Lumber Liquidators.  After a lot of searching we went with a laminate floor.  We decided on this because of our dogs and our budget.  I had the barn wood look in my head and this floor was dead on for the look I wanted.  Yes, there are many wood and tile floors out there that we could have got that are barn wood look-a-likes, but we have a budget people!  

We are pleased with the look and have gotten many compliments.  It is very easy to clean and with all the dog traffic - no scratches yet.

Ugly tile alert! Off of our bedroom we have a nice area that leads out to the back yard.  It houses another closet and Hubby is in the process of building me a vanity in this little nook.  It is tiled and leads into the bathroom. The tile will be changed when we start the master bathroom remodel.  I cannot wait to have a beautiful tile matched up right next to our new bedroom floor.

A new coat of paint can do wonders in a room.  With just new paint in every room in our house - it looks like a totally different place.  We used Benjamin Moore's Kendall Charcoal for our master.  Hubby and my dad installed all the crown molding to finish it off.

New closet doors. Our list of master bedroom upgrades: -paint -crown molding -flooring -new electrical plugs and covers -bedding -area rug -head board -bench/chairs at end of bed -closet doors/handles -paint french doors black -curtains on french doors -hide TV cords -vanity Still a lot of things to do ( I am sure the list will grow), but A TON has been completed. I am starting to love walking by our french doors in the dining room that lead to the master.  I do not cringe looking at plywood floors and burnt orange walls anymore. I am about 90% sure that I am not going to frost the doors, just hang curtains so that I can look in when it is not a mess! I know these pictures leave a lot to be desired, but come back for Part 2 of the master bedroom reno soon!

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House of Turquoise

While red is a wonderful color and looks great on many things, my front door is not one of them.  YES, many homes look so charming with a red front door - again, not mine. Guess what? When we bought our home - red door!  Not only did it not look good with the original color of the house, it did not look good with our re-painted house.  When we were house searching I already knew I wanted a turquoise front door.  I was not sure of the shade, but it was going to be turquoise.  I walked up to every door with my eyes squinting, trying to see if I could picture the color change on the door.  We didn't really have that long of a home search before we landed on ours.  Walking up to it - the door color would be changed along with the house color.  So - no worries there.

I thought I had a better "before" picture of the red door, but in all the move and rush of painting - this is as good as it gets.  The bottom right picture is the color of red that was on the outside of the door. A few months down the road after the purchase, when we began to paint the outside of the house - we had a little "snafu" if you will.  I will save you from this story - until another time of course.  Lets just say I was completely re-thinking my whole color scheme including my beloved turquoise door!  Hubby fixed everything (as usual..blah) and I got my door!

We do have a glass storm door that is not pictured.  I have considered removing it (eye sore), but the dogs love it so much when we have the door open because they can look outside and enjoy harass the people and animals that walk by all day! We have plans to paint our porch tile grey.  We will use the outdoor porch paint that we purchased for our striped floors in the craft room.  We had it matched to the outside of the house because we knew we would not use the whole gallon inside.   Don't ya'll just love our gold mail slot?  Yes, that is really how we get our mail!  I have a basket inside to catch everything.

I loved the "after" so much that we decided to paint our side door by the garage.

And our back doors. The dark grey and white trim on our house makes these doors POP! The front door is still red on the inside.  I cannot decide what color to paint it.  Take a look at our living room and give me some help! White, light grey, dark grey, turquoise?  Keep it red? HELP! Let me know your thoughts in the comments.

Painting our Vinyl Floors

As promised - a little DIY info on painting our vinyl mud room (turned craft room) floors!  Also, a little eye candy for ya - Rosie Posie in all her glory.  As I mentioned in my last post - we were the proud owners of a brown vinyl or linoleum floor - I'm not really sure of the difference.  Our brown floors were faded to a lovely shade of green right by all the doors - compliments of the sun.  These floors didn't really bother me when we moved in - I knew I would be ripping them out eventually.  Well 9 months later, they were receiving an eye roll every time I walked through the room.  Determined to figure out a temporary fix - I went to Pinterest.  This and this really inspired me to give painting our floors a try.  I figured that if we messed it up too bad, we could get to covering them with new flooring at some point.  

We purchased two colors of porch paint and primer to do the job.  We matched our grey paint to the outside of our house so that we can use the same gallon to re-paint our front porch tile.  After a good cleaning, we covered the entire floor in one coat of primer.

We then (after barely letting it dry because I am impatient) covered the entire floor in one coat of our white porch paint.  We let it dry over night...torture for me, and put another coat of white the next evening.  

After both coats of white paint dried, we measured off 8 inch stripes and laid them with painter's tape. This was the tedious part, but having Hubby help me really made a difference.  Measuring and numbers make me sweat and throw things occasionally.  We painted every other stripe with our grey porch paint.  Let it dry ANOTHER night..ahhh...and then finished up with coat #2 of grey paint. I did have a little bit of grey paint bleed under the tape.  Not enough for me to go back over anything though.  Several of the tutorials I looked at said that after you lay the tape, to go over it again completely with white paint.  It sets the tape really well.  Of course I did not do that, because we know why (time, time, time).

Overall, we are thrilled with how the floors turned out.  The craft room is a high traffic area and the paint has held up very well so far.  I have been cleaning it with my Swiffer Wet Jet and the results are great.  If not anything, we have a great temporary fix until money starts growing on trees!  

We have considered looking into staining the concrete that is underneath one day down the road.  Anyone have any experience (good or bad) with DIYing that? Let me know in the comments!

Craft Room Progress

The craft room is under way!  In the back of our house (leading out to the backyard) we have another add on room that we really consider a mud room.  It has 3 great doors that have windows top to bottom.  They let in great light.  The room also came with a built in cabinet and counter top.  Since we moved in, the counter top has really only housed Hubby's tools and projects (pretty much an eye sore).  Let's be real.

One day, while standing in the room with my thinking cap on - I decided this was to be my craft room.  I consider myself a crafty person and figured Hubby would like all my crafty things in one spot.  Brilliant.  With built in cabinets already in place - this would be the perfect spot to get messy.

I like to be inspired when working on a project or writing a post.  Nice, pretty, creative things around me usually help!  YES, this room is still in progress, but so far - we have painted of course (this room was an interesting shade of green), we added a solid cedar shelf above the cabinets, I painted the cork board, and we cut out some chicken wire. Still left to do - more storage, shelves for printer and  printer accessories,  I have my eye on some Nate Berkus accessories for the desk.  Also, in time I would like to have this counter top magically turn into a butcher block (maybe when we redo the kitchen).

Painting this floor dramatically changed the look of the room.  Before - the floor was a brown vinyl that looked like tile. HIDEOUS.  It was faded to green from the doors never having window treatments on them.  Hubby and I considered many options before painting.  All those options totally busted the budget we had set for this room.  While browsing Pinterest, I came across several pins about painting the floor.  Showed it to Hubby - we were painting the next night.  I plan to post a tutorial about painting the floor, so if you are interested in that - come back to me soon!

The turquoise stools were originally brown and in my parents' kitchen until they built their second home and finally upgraded.  They sat in the attic for several years until Hubby and I moved into our second apartment and had a bar that needed some bar stools.  Mom and Dad - your stools made another move and live on (with a little face lift)! 

Tripp is making his debut and loving every minute of it.  He is very photogenic, don't ya think?

American Dream Builders

Please tell me you are watching American Dream Builders on NBC on Sunday nights 8/7 pm central! If not - go to your DVR right now and set it up to record. Hubby and I are slightly obsessed with this show.  We are already avid watchers of anything on HGTV, so this is just an added bonus for us on another channel.  In a nutshell - it is another elimination show.  Two teams redesign and redecorate homes in a week and then reveal.  Judges vote...you know the drill.   I have loved every episode so far (there have only been a few, so you are not too far behind to catch up), but the episode on 4/6/14 - had my jaw dropping!  Literally - when they did the reveal I immediately turned to Hubby with my mouth hanging open.  He knew it too - he was already looking at me expecting my reaction.

Please, please, please go look at these Spanish Style homes that they remodeled on the episode that aired on 4/6/14.

Now - I will admit that I was totally smitten with Team Red's living room and kitchen (this is the part of the episode that had my mouth hanging open practically drooling).  I am a HUGE fan of rustic touches in a room.  I love airy and white decoration with touches of wood and steel.  Team Red nailed it - and also kept with the Spanish style of the home.

Some of the things that I am obsessed with in Team Red's  living room are:

- Fireplace mantel and tile

- The color palette (I feel like my living room has this color vibe to an extent)

- The glass and gold coffee table

- Furniture

- and pretty much everything else!

I LOVE the kitchen too - simply put - WHITE cabinets.  That's really all it takes to have me hooked, but everything else in there has me swooning as well.  I have intentions of painting our kitchen cabinets this summer and hopefully in time - adding a butcher block counter top.  We have already replaced some light fixtures, giving it a little bit of a rustic feel.  Here are some ideas that are swirling around in my head (especially after this episode):

Rug

dotandbo.com

AERIN nesting bowl

aerin.com

Alessi cutlery

$84 - madeindesign.co.uk

West Elm rectangular kitchen table

westelm.com

Merola Tile Metro Soho Subway Glossy White 2 in. x 7-1/2 in. Porcelain...

homedepot.com

Home Decorators Collection 1-Light Ceiling Industrial Gloss White...

homedepot.com

Home Decorators Collection 1-Light Ceiling Clear Glass Cylinder...

homedepot.com

NUMERÄR

ikea.com

More swirling ideas for our fireplace remodel:

Just a few ideas.  All it takes is money...anyone willing to donate out there??? Just kidding...kind of..